


this wasn't the family meeting i was expecting tonight

by anakatieskywalker



Series: Stephanie Brown, Third Robin [11]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25752616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anakatieskywalker/pseuds/anakatieskywalker
Summary: Steph's tired of being alone, and tired of not remembering things. It's time for everyone to come to terms with the truth laid in front of them.
Series: Stephanie Brown, Third Robin [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858975
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	this wasn't the family meeting i was expecting tonight

**Author's Note:**

> An AU where Steph's the third robin, the dead robin, and the resurrected robin. When Steph was resurrected, she was resurrected and trained by the League of Assassins. Takes place after Damian's death.

Of course Steph is getting chased down by her old family for impersonating herself, how else would her life go? It’s gotten funnier though, as Steph regains some of her memories, including her threatening Tim if he didn’t stop following her around with a camera that was half the size of him. 

She’s jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and she has to admit, for people who don’t work together, Jason, Tim, and Bruce were very adept at backing her into a corner. Steph glanced around, her options were to try and disappear the next time she managed to escape one of their lines of sight, or to reveal herself. 

And if she was honest, she was really tired of trying to do everything on her own. Her memories come back like ghosts when she wanders around at night, like leaves getting tossed into the wind, a sharp laugh ringing in her ears as she catches glimpses of how she used to fly across the rooftops every night.

Steph had gone to a diner down near Crime Alley and was halfway through a coffee before it hit her that this was where Jason revealed his identity to her. Revealed everyone’s identity, really. Steph managed to hold back tears, just barely, until she got back to her safehouse. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she cried like that, for the life she lost, for how excited she’d been when Jason said she was going to be Robin. Having a memory that crisp gave her something to hold onto, but it also made her wish for someone to share it with. She couldn’t call Talía to talk about the glimpse into her past that she’d had, not when the woman was mourning her son.

So when the others are trying to catch her, because they’re tired of not knowing who is pretending to be in their ranks, she opts to lead them into an abandoned apartment complex instead of ditching them to double back to her safe house. Steph knows they’ll think they’ve pinned her, and it’s what she wants. She wants to see her family again, but she also wants them to accept her return as truth, and Steph just willingly showing up… well, Batman’s always been a little skeptical.

Jason gets there first, gun already pulled, and Steph makes a show of raising her hands in surrender. The others come in behind him, and are on red alert almost immediately.

“Hood, stand down.” Bruce growls, and it’s weird for her to try to reconcile this man with the few memories she has. But this was the man that Damian knew.

Jason, in that helmet that both makes perfect sense and none at all, practically snarls. “This imposter needs to know that this isn’t a game, and there are consequences for stealing someone’s legacy.”

Steph’s a little preoccupied, but she’s pretty sure Tim’s eyes widen to a comical degree. That’s an interesting note to file away for later, along with the fact that he’s a vigilante. Had he been one before she died? Could she really have forgotten that?

“In my defense, I wasn’t aware that there was a permit process to dressing up in a costume and running around like a fool every night.” That’s a line that would get her in trouble with Talía, for sure. The woman didn’t really have time for backtalk while running the League, but this isn’t her, and Jason had wanted her for the job in order to keep Bruce on his toes.

Now eyes are narrowed at her, and it’s her turn to get growled at by the Bat. “Who are you? Show us your face.”

“Okay, okay. Just a warning though, my hair’s probably a mess. This wasn’t the family meeting I was expecting tonight.” Steph reaches a hand up slowly, telegraphing her movements before she pulls the Spoiler mask off in one fluid motion.

There’s a collective gasp, and Jason finally lowers his gun to the floor. Bruce’s mouth is hanging open, and Tim… Tim is hugging her. Steph keeps her hands in the air for a moment, her body still tensed for an attack, before she lightly pries Tim off of her.

“It’s good to see you too, Timmy.”

Once Tim backs away, the other two stay a good distance back. Steph’s both thankful and hurt by this, but she pushes the feelings down.

“Stephanie, you’re...alive.” Bruce’s voice is low, and Steph remembers there being a no-names in the field rule. Guess that’s gone out the window.

“Yeah, it’s a long story. Look, I understand if you guys don’t believe me-”

“I think the way we could settle that would be to go back to the cave. If you’re willing.” Bruce’s tone has turned oddly soft, like he’s scared she’s going to run away. But Steph just nods and he calls for the Batmobile. 

Tim reaches towards her, like he wants to lead her out of the building, but Steph quickly sidesteps him and follows Batman’s cape as he turns around the corner. Jason’s taking up the rear, he hasn’t said anything to her, but Steph tries not to take it to heart. He’s just… shocked. That’s all.

The ride back to the BatCave is a silent one, and when they get there, Bruce immediately goes off to get some testing kits. Steph’s pretty sure she’s going to get blood drawn and cheeks swabbed for the foreseeable future.

Just standing there with Jason and Tim, neither of whom have taken their eyes off of her is pretty offputting. She’s tempted to make stupid faces until they crack, she’s pretty sure that’s something past Steph would do, but this isn’t past Steph. So instead, she glances around the cave, looking for something that might jog her memory a little more.

Then she sees it. There’s a case, separate from the rest of the uniforms, and the sight of it makes her blood run cold. It’s her Robin uniform, the one she’d worn for the last week of her life. She knows because of how damaged the fabric is, she can see her own blood stains and where he poked and prodded, and for a moment, she’s back in time. Back in that room with the Black Mask.

Steph closes her eyes and forces the memory away, now is not the time to crack open that can of worms. Her nails are digging into her palms while she counts her breaths, the sounds of her own screams are starting to fade when she hears the clatter of a tray as well as the shattering of what has to be fine china.

“Miss Stephanie…?” Alfred. The thought of seeing the old gentleman and  _ not _ scaring him with how messed up her head is helps her push the past away. It’s different than what she’s been trying to do for the last few weeks, but mentally exhausting just the same.

“Hey, Alfred. Good to see you.” She keeps her tone light, airy, like she’d been on vacation instead of dead like everyone thought. 

“How could this be?” He makes his way down to embrace her, and that’s when Bruce returns with all the nerdy science kits in the world.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to find out.” The cowl’s pulled back, and he looks like more time has passed than just two years. Bruce has clearly been under a lot of stress, with her death, and more recently Damian’s.

It gives her pause, and makes a small voice in the back of her head wonder if coming back was really a good idea. Steph takes a mental pillow and does her best to smother the small voice of doubt, this is what she wanted. She has to follow through.

Steph clears her throat, and it gets Bruce to look up from where he’s lining up the tests on a table. “You got a spare change of clothes I can borrow? It might make the drawing blood part of this easier without all of the…” she trails off, gesturing to her getup, and watches as the man thinks for a moment.

It goes unsaid that if she’s not wearing her costume it’ll make it marginally harder for her to run away, which Steph isn’t actually planning on doing. It’s just a contingency plan, she could do it with or without her gear, not that they need to know that. Bruce nods to Tim, and the boy walks across the cave to retrieve some sweats that are emblazoned with ‘Wayne Enterprises’ and are definitely going to be too big on her. That’s fine, the less they see of the things that have happened to her, the better.

“Thanks. I’ll… be back in a few, I guess.” Steph’s not really sure what to say, so she points over her shoulder to where she remembers the showers being, and then tries to calmly walk towards them. 

Steph rinses off the grime of running through Gotham and changes, avoiding looking at the mirror. Being a child vigilante, dying via torture, crawling out of the ground, and then training for two years has left more than its fair share of scars, and some she’s less than fond of seeing. 

She’s about to turn the corner to return to the main part of the cave when she hears them talking.

“What if she’s a clone?” The first voice says, and she can’t quite place who exactly it is.

“We’ll rule that out, thanks to everything with Superboy and Arsenal.” The second voice is Bruce, recognizing the deep tone still practically ingrained in her bones.

“And if it’s actually her? Are we prepared for that, how are you going to tell the others?”

“I’ve already messaged them, and asked them to come by in a few hours. That’ll give us time to confirm the test results, they don’t know the real reason I called them in. I just said I wanted to go over the reports from the last breakout.” When Bruce finishes, Steph breathes for a few seconds and then rounds the corner. 

Everyone was going to know she was alive by the end of the night, she wasn’t sure if that was the response she’d been expecting. Steph walks over to the bench in front of all the test kits Bruce has laid out, sits down, and pulls her sleeve up. There’s some light scarring on her forearm, but she refuses to look at it, instead meeting Bruce’s eyes.

“Well, let’s get to it.”

Tim moves to stand next to her and offers a hand, which she stares at for a solid thirty seconds before Jason snorts. Tim blushes, he’d also taken his cowl off and Jason had removed that helmet that was apparently part of his uniform, leaving a domino mask on underneath. Were they all always such drama queens?

Cautiously, Steph reaches her hand out and intwines their fingers. It feels good, but also a little off.

“You used to hate needles, I thought it would help.” his voice is barely above a whisper, but Steph feels her ears burn because this wasn’t a phobia that has carried over to her new life, and Bruce is standing right there.

She stares at their hands, like if she looks close enough, somehow she’ll be able to see through them. “No, uh… just pills, now. I can’t, for some reason-”

“Your mother had a problem with them, when you were fourteen. She got help, and finally got clean not long after you died.” If Steph thought her voice and Tim’s were quiet, Bruce’s would barely even register a decibel reading.

“Oh, I don’t… really remember.” She swallows, her mother had been battling a drug problem. Dear God, how could she not have remembered that. “It’s kind of a problem I’ve been trying to fix.”

The older man’s eyebrows go up, and Steph focuses on him and her grip on Tim’s hand instead of looking at anyone else. Bruce works deftly, even while he asks, “How big of a problem?”

“Really big? It’s why I came back.”

They fall into silence for the rest of the time, and when Bruce has finished collecting his samples and retreats back to the lab space to start running the tests, Steph untangles her hand from Tim’s and pulls her sleeve back down, so that she can curl into herself. She’d forgotten how big the cave could feel when you were uncertain of yourself.

That’s when Alfred replaces Tim at her side, a steaming mug of what looks like hot chocolate in his hands. “Just how I recall you liking it, Miss Stephanie.”

She shoots him a weak grin, accepting the mug. “Thanks, Alfred.” Steph runs her thumb over the rim of the cup, staring into the chocolatey depths while Jason and Tim accept their own mugs. 

Bruce comes back, and drags the big swivel chair from the Bat-Computer and sits across from her. Steph looks at him from between her eyelashes, as he accepts his own mug. 

It hits her that his drink is tea, always has been, except on the really terrible nights where their costumes would get soaked through from all the rain. That’s when he would take a mug of hot chocolate instead. It’s an odd memory, one she didn’t even know she would want to hold onto, but she grips it just as tightly as the mug while she takes a sip of the chocolatey goodness.

Bruce watches her take a sip, as do the others, although the three of them are scattered a little bit farther away. “We can go slow, Stephanie, but I need to know what you do remember.”

“Oh, goodie.” She mutters under her breath, before nodding at him to carry on.

And she tells him what she remembers, from before. Running across rooftops, odd moments of school, threatening Tim, Jason revealing identities. Things are hazy, and she can more recall what happened than who it was with. Bruce looks like he’s trying to figure out the puzzle that is her memory, while Jason and Tim seem to have relaxed. Guess they ruled out her being a clone as an option then.

Then the most important question comes, “Do you remember how you died, or what happened after?”

Steph’s entire body goes rigid as a series of images cross her mind in a flash, Black Mask, rioters, Bruce’s worried face, a confined space with _ so  _ much dirt, and the bubbling green mass that was the pit.

“Yeah, when I’m asleep. I can see all of it then. Otherwise… just bits and pieces, like everything else.” 

She flexes her fingers around the mug and counts to ten, it was a question that had to be asked, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing their job. You’re fine, Stephanie.  **_You’re fine._ **

“Does your mother know you’re back yet?” Alfred asks, and if it’s possible, Steph feels even worse about leaving everyone from her past in the dark.

“No. No, that one’s going to be hard to explain…”

**Author's Note:**

> [hit me up on tumblr!!](https://thatsuperherosidekick.tumblr.com/)


End file.
